Hello, my name is Zac Lunak and I am the President

for ASCLS-ND this upcoming year. Being a part of

this society is something I have truly enjoyed over

the last several years. For those of you that don’t

know me, I was born and raised in Grand Forks. Af-

ter graduating, my wife and I moved to Milwaukee for

several years. I have been back in Grand Forks now for a little over 3 years, where I work as an assistant

professor for the University of North Dakota’s Medical Lab Science Dept.

I teach immunology and histotechnology. My wife and I have 2 boys (4 and

3 yrs old) at home that keep us busy, and just welcomed a baby girl this

past June.

First and foremost, I want to thank you for being a member of ASCLS. AS-CLS-ND is one of the stronger state societies, and I hope the trend contin-

ues. One of the questions I get asked a lot is “How do I get the most out

of my membership?” For me, the easiest answer was to get involved. Alt-

hough it is encouraged, getting involved doesn’t exclusively mean to serve on

the board, or participate on a committee. Simply attending a conference,

participating in “Lab Week Run”, submitting an article for the newsletter

and many other opportunities are available through ASCLS to help lab pro-

fessionals get involved. For myself, getting involved has not only opened up

numerous networking opportunities but also has opened my eyes on what

this society does for not only its members but for the profession as a

whole.

Via the newsletter and online discussion forums (ASCLS Digest), I will try

to notify members as opportunities arise to get involved. On that note, I

will start by encouraging you to attend the ASCLS Region V meeting this

October 4-5th. This year it is in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, at the Earle

Brown Heritage Center. More information can be found at http://

www.regionvascls.online/.

Thank you!

Special points of interest:

National meeting highlights - 2

Coloring Book - 3

Laboratory Greeting Cards - 10

More from Annual Meeting - 11

Inside this issue:

President’s Message 1

Student Representative

message

3

ASCLS - About Us 4

Annual Meeting-My

Experience

6

Save the dates 7

A Message from Past

President

8

A Note From New

Professional

9

The Connection August 2018

President’s Message

The Connection Page 2

ASCLS NATIONAL MEETING

I had the privilege of representing ASCLS –ND and ASCLS Region V at the national meeting held in

Chicago, IL. What a great meeting it was. Good speakers and great scenery. Here are a few pictures of

the area and the meeting.

ND Representatives

L-R

Leah Runyan, Sharon Reistad, Ali Hassan,

Mary Coleman, Brooke Solberg

Region V Representatives from:

North Dakota

South Dakota

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Continued on page 9 Dean Porter, Sharon Reistad, Jozey Keith,

Leah Runyan shopping at the silent auction at

Mary Coleman-ND, Dean

Porter-MN, Sharon Reistad-

Page 3 Aug 2018

I don't even know where to begin to try describing my time at the ASCLS National Meeting. Not only was it my first professional conference, but it was also my first time going to Chicago. I was blown away by the city, and all it had to offer. The food, shopping, and buildings were all amazing. However, the best part of the trip was becoming more familiar with ASCLS as an organization, and how it can help me grow. I also began to think about how I can help grow it. The national meeting really lit a fire in me and sparked my imagination for how I can advocate for my profession and try to get students and upcoming new professionals more involved. I left feeling excited for the future, and I can't wait to get to work as the student representative this year!

A WORD FROM OUR STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE

Leah Runyan

LAB COLORS

By Sophia Chen ASLCS NC

Last Spring, during a North Carolina Society for Clinical Laboratory Science

Board Meeting, the topic of fundraising came up. How could Society make

something that would be appealing to beyond North Carolinian laboratori-

ans and phlebotomists, as well as something that would be relevant and po-

tentially useful? From this, NCSCLS began to create order of draw brace-

lets, pins, and badge cards. They also asked me if I was willing to undertake the task of

creating an adult coloring book that could be both a study guide and fun to color. I happi-

ly agreed, as it seemed like a fun project, and I had some experience in graphic design and

art. For the next month, I spent every spare moment at my dining table with papers

strewn about; 20 images sketched and inked three to four times until I was satisfied with

its appearance and quality. Some did not end up in the coloring book, while others grew

and expanded, like the Floral Microscope. Once that was done, another two weeks were

spent scanning and digitally cleaning the images. The book, Lab Colors: An NCSCLS Adult

Coloring Book, was then presented to the Board, approved, and officially donated to

NCSCLS. Currently, the NCSCLS Square Page has a 20% off code of ASCLS2018, and will

be valid until September 1st, 2018. Purchase your copy today!

The Connection Page 4

About Us

The mission of ASCLS is to make a positive impact in health care through leadership that will

assure excellence in the practice of laboratory medicine.

ASCLS believes...

1. Quality laboratory service is essential to quality health care.

2. Competent, credentialed, laboratory professionals are the foundation to quality laboratory

medicine.

3. Everyone deserves access to safe, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered health

care, and

4. Advancing the laboratory profession advances health care.

Adopted by the ASCLS House of Delegates July 2011

TIME TO GET INVOLVED……………..

VOLUNTEER

REMEMBER TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP

CHECK OUT ALL ASCLS-ND HAS TO OFFER

LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS & OPPERTUNITIES

Page 5 Aug 2018

The Connection Page 6

Why Everyone Should Go to an ASCLS National Meeting

By Jozey Keith

I recently had the opportunity to attend the 2018 National ASCLS meeting in

Chicago, IL. I’ve been to two other ones over the past 5 years and knew somewhat

of what was going to happen while I was there. It was so much more inspiring and fun

than I remembered which is why I want to share with you all the reasons why every-

one who works in the lab should go to the ASCLS National meeting at least once in

their lives.

First, (and probably the most obvious) networking is a huge part of this event.

There are endless possibilities from the job fair to the various Scientific Assemblies to

all of the planned social events to the huge Lab Expo with all of the vendors. Being

able to talk to anyone from around the country about hematology analyzers and

knowing exactly what they’re talking about is fascinating to me. There are very few

people in my life (besides my coworkers, of course) with whom I can discuss what I

culture in Microbiology and them not being completely disgusted/not interested.

Second, the amount of continuing education credits available to a person is incredible. The topics

presented in all of the various sessions are usually super interesting/inspiring and up-to-date with all of the

most recent research. Also it’s not uncommon to be sitting in a lecture of person who wrote one of your

textbooks from college or the first person to complete the Doctorate of Clinical Lab Science.

Third, exploring new places is a favorite past time of mine and ASCLS has definitely helped me do

that. The annual meeting rotates between various cities in the US, which is cool for all of us who are inter-

ested in seeing new places. Between all of the sessions and things we needed to attend, there was definitely

time to adventure out into Chicago. I was able to see some things that I hadn’t before, as well as, eat all of

the deep dish pizza and get annoyed with how often people honked their car horns. Having the chance to go

as a big group to a White Sox game was pretty fun too!

My absolute favorite thing about the annual meeting, though, is the community of ASCLS. The feeling

of togetherness and passion for the profession is really unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of before. The

people who go to these meetings or are a member of ASCLS are the people who truly care about the fu-

ture of the profession and making sure people know who we are. I love being around people like that. It

makes me so thankful for my chosen career path and that I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the

ASCLS national meeting this year in Chicago.

The 2019 ASCLS Annual meeting will be held:

June 23-27 in Charlotte, NC

Make plans now to attend.

Page 7 Aug 2018

UP COMING MEETING’S YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS

Region V Symposium

Oct 4-5, 2018

Brooklyn Center MN

Clinical Laboratory Educator’s Conference

(CLEC)

Feb 21-23

Baltimore MD

Legislative Days

Mar 18-19

Alexandria, VA

ASCLS ND State meeting

April 15-17

Minot, ND

ASCLS Annual Meeting

June 23-27

Charlotte, NC

* Clicking on each meeting will take you to webpage information

Pease note: as of now the information for the annual meeting, state meeting and Legislative

days has not been updated.

Page 8 Aug 2018

As outgoing ASCLS-ND president, I was lucky enough to attend the 2018 ASCLS

Annual Meeting in Chicago, and wanted to share a few highlights with you!

As always, the annual meeting was a great opportunity to see and hear about all the working parts of ASCLS.

The educational sessions were very informative and left me thinking a lot about the future of our profession. For example, one session focused on the idea of ‘Lab 2.0’, where the speaker promoted the idea of making the lab more of a value-based entity (providing insight with the lab result), versus quantity-based (relying solely on the number of tests run).

I was encouraged by the level of participation, passion, and presence that ASCLS Region V (MN, ND, SD, WI) has on the national scale (including the outgoing ASCLS national president). We are a healthy region with a lot of involved members, and it is exciting that ASCLS-ND gets to be part of that!

One evening during the meeting I was lucky enough to attend my first Alpha Mu Tau Fraternity (AMTF) dinner, as a guest of Mary Coleman (thank you Mary!). The mission of AMTF is “to recog-nize persons who have made outstanding professional contributions to the field of clinical labora-tory science and to enhance the profession by providing scholarships to support educational en-deavors”. AMTF provides thousands of dollars of scholarships to laboratory science students (two students from the UND MLS program even received scholarships this year!) each year, and it was special to be in a room with so many people devoted to the education of future laboratory professionals!

In addition to all of the formal meeting components, the ASCLS-ND delegation got to have a little fun in Chicago, too! For anyone considering becoming more involved with ASCLS-ND, such as be-ing part of the board (hint, hint )…remember that getting to travel to different places across the country for the annual meeting is a definite perk!

All in all, it was another great meeting that helped remind me about the importance of ASCLS member-

ship to our profession. I hope you all will consider attending next year’s meeting which will be in Char-

lotte, North Carolina.

~Brooke Solberg

MESSAGE FROM PAST PRESIDENT BROOKE SOLBERG

Aug 2018 Page 9

2018 ASCLS Annual Meeting –Chicago, IL

Ali Hassan, MLS(ASCP)CM

New Professional Representative ASCLS-ND

On Sunday, July 29th, 2018 was the start of my second ASCLS Annual Meeting. I

chose the Doctorate of Clinical Laboratory Science (DCLS) Committee meeting to

kick start my 5 day long “educational vacation”. This committee grabbed my atten-

tion the first annual meeting as well and I was intrigued by their accomplishments. I

also had the opportunity to attend the first story slam session and it was unique to

use creative speakers. One of my favorite events to attend during a national ASCLS

event is student/new professional new member sessions that help us jump start the

networking capabilities of ASCLS. This year, we start with a jeopardy session and

then moved to the mixer. Which initialed a selfie scavenger hunt around a three block radius of the Swissotel, where all the ASCLS events were being hosted. We were divided into nine

teams and then given instructions and clues to solve and figure out the next destination. I was the selfie guy

for our group so I brought a lot of pictures back home to share my exploration of the city of Chicago.

Monday morning, I volunteered the HOPE donation table and I had chance to meet more people and do

something good the community of the host city. I attended the student and new professional/new member

form orientation and call for nominations. I was also awarded the keys to the future during my Region V

Caucus meeting. I spent the rest of the day taking advantage of CE session, starting with the opening key-

note.

Leading the Way to Zero: Zero harm means always identifying every patient and their specimen criteria

from the start of collection to maintaining the quality and integrity of the sample in the analytical phase to

out putting accurate results the first time. The laboratory’s role in leading the Way to Zero will have to re-

focus more in the direction of interdisciplinary patient-centered care team by viewing their services as con-

tributing to patient outcomes, not just generating results.

Sickle Cell Trait: Benign Carrier or Clinical Condition? The controversy regarding the connection between

sickle cell trait (SCT) as a benign carrier or a clinical condition before experiencing a life-threatening event

upon extreme physical exertion. The current US military and National Collegiate Athletic Association

(NCAA) policies on recruits/athletes with SCT has been recommended to stop screening and develop uni-

versal standards or alter the training regimens to reduce all exercise related events. Potential mechanisms

and the associated test results causing exertion related adverse events in SCT include rhabdomyolysis, acti-

vation of the coagulation system, and renal disease, which can all be monitored using biomarkers like D-

Dimer, CK, and electrolytes.

Continued on page 14

Looking for that special card? Well look no further!

These cards are designed by Medical Laboratory Scientists for Medical Laboratory

Scientists (or anyone else)!

Printable cards covering the following occasions:

Christmas, Birthday, Valentine’s Day, Congratulations, Thinking

of you, St. Patrick's Day, Lab Week, and Thanksgiving

Cards will print on standard 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock paper.

PLEASE NOTE: all printers print a little different. You may

have to play with printing to get them to print correctly.

For just $5 you can download all 8 cards from the ASCLS Online Store

*you must be logged into you ASCLS account. Go to store then membership products and scroll down.

All proceeds got to the Region V Leadership Academy.

The Connection Page 10

SAVE THE DATE

2019 ASCLS-ND STATE MEETING

MINOT, ND

SLEEP INN

APRIL 15-17

We are looking for speaker, vendors, helpers

If you or someone you know would like to participate contact:

Jozey Keith jozey.a.keith@icooud.com

Sharon Reistad sreistad@srt.com

Aug 2018 Page 11

Continued from page 2 More national meeting highlights

Your 2018 delegates accepting personal and state

awards:

Leah Runyan,

Ali Hassan received the New Professional Travel

Grant Recipient award

Sharon Reistad received the ND member of the year

award

Brooke Solberg received the ASCLS Voices Under 40

Jozey Keith holding the ND Promote the Profession

2nd place award

“When is Urine Glucose Normal and Other Urine Oddities

By

Mary Ann McLane, PhD, MLS(ASCP)™,

University of Delaware

Laboratory Test Selection: Working Towards a

New Paradigm

Elissa Passiment, EdM, SC Clinical Consulting Group

MariBeth Gagnon, MS, CT(ASCP) HTL(ASCP), Centers for Disease Control

Some of the CE sessions offered at the

national meeting

Page 12 Aug 2018

We did find time to do some sight seeing

Dinner at Harry Caray’s BBQ restaurant on the Navy Pier

L-R

Stephanie Jacobson (SD)

Mary Coleman

Jozey Keith

Ali Hassan

Brooke Solberg

Leah Runyan

Brooke, Leah, Ali and Sharon took an

architectural River Boat ride.

Aug 2018 Page 13

Ali and Sharon braved the

Willis (Sears) tower the night before they flew out

103rd floor, 1353 feet in the air standing in a glass box.

It was amazing.

Continued from page 9

Innate Lymphoid Cells: New Players in Immune Defense? Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are lymphocytes that

are part of the innate immune system that are actively communicating with wide variety of hematopoietic and

non-hematopoietic cells.

Globalization and Infectious Diseases: The factors associated with the globalization of infectious diseases in-

clude demographic and social changes, economic changes, environmental and climate changes and most of

microbial adaptation. The One Health Triad: healthy people, healthy animals and healthy environment is the

key to the local and global issue of antibiotic resistance in terms of achieving globalization. The hidden profes-

sions who fight against HAIs and antibiotic resistance are hygiene specialist, public health professionals, and

medical laboratory professionals.

On Tuesday, I attend one more CE session by John Gerlach, who discussed haplo-identical transplants in

terms of effectiveness and clinical outcomes. The session was titled, One Haplotype Matched Bone Mar-

row/Hematopoieitic Stem Cell Transplants.

In the afternoon, I did some sightseeing with a group and then finally had Chicago famous deep dish pizza,

which was delicious. In the evening I attended the Member Award Ceremony, and this year I got called up

the stage and got a certificate for being one the three travel grant recipients. I took part in the ASCLS Presi-

dent’s Reception and E&R silent Auction followed by the Labapoolza Afterglow. I also made it to the end of a

private event hosted by Arkray for a customer event suggested by manager.

On Wednesday, I started with some CE sessions: Conducting Research: Data for the Clinical Laboratory Sci-

entist, Westgard Rules: Past, Present and Future, Diagnostic, Microbiology: Interactive Case Studies with the

Experts, ASCLS Leadership Academy Class of 2017-2018 Project Presentation, Body Fluid Specimen Flow

Cytometric Immunophenotyping, Doctorate in Clinical Laboratory Science (DCLS) Clinical Experience: A

Tale of Two Programs. I also attended Student and New Professional/New member Forum Lunch and Busi-

ness Meeting.

On Thursday, I started breakfast the McCormick Place for the Impressive Clinical Laboratory Exposition.

This year, the location was far and I wish I spent more time there. My final CE session was the closing key-

note by Dr. Kamran Mirza discussing Social Media & the Lab: Why it is Imperative for Laboratory Profession-

als to Be on Social Media. Turning towards social media to advertise the profession on a larger platform like

Twitter, Facebook, and even YouTube. The House of Delegates was the last event of the meeting and since I

was the professional delegate for my state I got to take part in the whole thing.

Page 14 Aug 2018